Tag: Constituent Power

Though I do like breaking femurs You can count me with the dreamers Like everybody else, I got a dream… (I’ve got a dream, Tangled) The jig is finally up, politics isn’t running as normal anymore (although ‘the oppressed’ always knew that the ‘state of emergency’ was normal, reminding us that our ‘amazement’ revealed the…

The de­fense of any order once it is es­tab­lished is a su­premely ni­hil­istic ges­ture that af­firms nothing but the power of those who have power1 The escalation of the Crimean crisis has all but obscured the events in the Ukraine during November 2013 – February 2014 that led to it and which alone make it…

“… While a constituent power destroys law only to recreate it in a new form, destituent power, in so far as it deposes once and for all the law, can open a really new historical epoch …” Transcript of lecture delivered by Agamben in Athens, 16.11.2013.A reflection on the destiny of democracy today here in…

Key Concept Speaking in 1976 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville Derrida prefaced a lecture on Nietzsche with some remarks on The American Declaration of Independence. In this brief text — subsequently published in Negotiations (2002) as “Declarations of Independence” (hereafter “Declarations”) — Derrida assesses the status of “the people” as the sovereign guarantor of…

In its traditional conception, the constituent is a power that constitutes and reconstitutes the state. This is a dangerous, though important salve for the problem of corruption in the body politic. The people or their representatives may overthrow the constituted order when it loses its authority, when the monarch or polyarch becomes tryannous. However, our…

There has been much discussion and fear-mongering about this expected summer of rage. The idea is put forward by the media and political classes that we must expect the worst. However, in the light of the recent resurgence of the left and the countervailing ideology perpetuated by mainstream politics and the media, it is worthwhile…